Israel’s siege of Northern Gaza and its violation of the recently-signed ceasefire deal in Lebanon were the people’s focus at Australia-wide rallies for Palestine in the 60th consecutive week of protests, including the United Nation’s declared International Day of Solidarity with Palestine on November 29.
As the outgoing lame-duck United States President Joe Biden repeats ad nauseum that Israel has a “right to defend itself” and the White House is “working on a ceasefire deal”, former Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya’alon said Israel is carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza.
Pressed to retract by Israel’s Channel 12, Ya’alon refused. “It’s not the most moral army today,” he said, adding, “It’s hard for me to say that”. He blamed “politicians” who, he says, are instructing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to “carry out what are defined as war crimes”.
He said they include “evacuate[ing] the population for [ostensible] operational activities” but which are really aimed at reviving Jewish settlement in the strip.
The Times of Israel reported Ya’alon’s interview in which he also said the arrest warrant put out against Benjamin Netanyahu was justified. He said the International Criminal Court has a list of other officials from defense and politics who will be investigated for war crimes. If it was up to him, Ya’alon said, far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir would have been arrested “some time ago”.
The Gaza Health Ministry estimates the death toll at more than 44,000, including 13,000 children. But The Lancet said in July that it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza — around 8% of the total population.
Israel targeted and killed three more World Central Kitchen aid workers in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on November 29. Consequently, aid deliveries there have been stopped and in the rest of the Strip have “fallen to an all-time low”.
In October an average of just 37 trucks per day entered Gaza, and in the first week of November that had only lifted to an average of 69 a day, well below the average of the already insufficient 500 a day entering Gaza before October 7, 2023, reported the Gaza Humanitarian Aid Snapshot.
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Protesters in Magan-djin/Brisbane marked International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People with a lively march of more than 800 people, reports Alex Bainbridge.
The chant "While you are shopping, bombs are dropping" was given visceral meaning when the protesters held a sit-down and heard speeches in the Queen Street mall.
The local Healthcare Workers for Palestine group began by putting faces and names to those being killed in Gaza in a series of presentations.
Greens candidate Remah Naji and Socialist Alliance Senate candidate Jonathan Strauss, who both say stopping Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is a critical election issue, spoke to protesters.
Jim McIlroy reports that the 60th weekly rally in Gadigal Country/Sydney at Hyde Park on December 1, organised by the Palestine Action Group, focussed on the theme: “Stop the genocide, stop the war and lock up Netanyahu!”
A sudden heavy storm did not deter protesters from continuing their march through the CBD.
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A few days earlier, about 70 people rallied near the Prime Minister’s residence in Kirribilli, marking the partition of Palestine in 1947, Rachel Evans reports.
The protest was led by anti-genocide organising group “The People” and was chaired by Wollongong Friends of Palestine activist Labiba Abdellatif.
Speakers included Nour Salman, Naarm/Melbourne-based Palestine activist and expert on South-West Asia and North Africa affairs; Ihab Abu Ibrahim, Naarm-based Palestinian activist; Markela Panegyres, University of Sydney academic and National Tertiary Education Union for Palestine activist; Elizabeth Jarrett, Gumabynggirr, Bundjalung, Dunghutti woman, who recently established the Sydney Basin Tent Embassy at Victoria Park.
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Activists in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide organised a vigil to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29, reports Jordan Ellis.
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Healthcare workers organised a rally to highlight that more than 1000 doctors and nurses have been killed by Israel in one year.
Israeli forces have arrested, tortured and executed more than 300 healthcare workers in prisons. Highly regarded Gazan surgeon Dr Adnan al Bursh was tortured to death while held in Israeli military custody in October.
Dr John Guy, from HealthWorkers for Palestine Adelaide, said: “We must come together as health workers. Israel’s attacks on hospitals and health care workers are uniquely iniquitous, and a war crime. We have a responsibility to call it out.”
The protest was part of a national weekend of action by healthcare workers from November 29 to December 1, with rallies in seven cities.
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A few days before, pro-Palestine activists occupied the office of weapons manufacturer BAE Systems in Kaurna Yerta to protest the company’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
BAE Systems manufacturers military weapons and equipment, including parts for F-35 fighter jets, military drones and M109 Howitzer long range artillery. These weapons have been used to kill thousands of Palestinians, including 17,000 children.
Protesters called on BAE Systems and other weapons manufacturers to stop supplying arms and parts to Israel, and called on the Australian government to cancel all agreements with weapons manufacturers.
“These companies have shown that their priority is corporate profits at all costs, even if that cost is ethnic cleansing … Stop arming Israel,” organiser said.
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A vigil for scholasticide in Gaza was held outside the South Australian Department of Education on December 2.
Scholasticide refers to the intended mass destruction of education. "In the last year, Israel has killed thousands of students and teachers, more than 600,000 students have been deprived of schooling, at least 90% of schools have been damaged or destroyed and all universities and higher education institutions have been destroyed."
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Thousands marched in Naarm/Melbourne on December 1, reports Jordan AK on the 60th week of continuous protest.
Margaret Beavis, Vice-President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War and co-chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, expressed dismay over the relentless attacks on health infrastructure and workers in Palestine.
Beavis praised Palestinian healthcare workers for their dedication, professionalism and courage and expressed horror for the hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers who have been disappeared, or imprisoned in abject conditions of "overcrowding, neglect, malnutrition, violence, torture, humiliation and abuse".
She said this should be a wake up call to health practitioners across the globe.
Rally Chair Mai Saif thanked rally-goers for their enduring dedication and commitment in taking to the streets in protest: “The media creates it own propaganda, we know our government is complicit in genocide … but it is our actions every week that is making a change.”
She pointed to the Victorian government’s announcement that it was cutting ties with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. “This would never have happened [without the rallies].”
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December 1 also coincides with the annual flag-raising ceremony of the West Papuan Morning Star flag. West Papuan activist Cyndi Makabory spoke about its significance in the context of Indonesian colonialism.
“Every year on December 1, the Morning Star rises again. No matter the repression, no matter the threat, this symbol of defiance cannot be repressed,” he explained.
“Like Palestinians, for Papuans, the Morning Star is more than a flag; it is our people; it is our pulse; it is our breath; our unbreakable will to be free; and in the hearts of those who raise it is the same unshakable cry for justice from the forest of West Papua to the river and sea of Palestine, and to the coast of so-called Australia and beyond."
Other speakers included Uncle Robbie Thorpe, medical scientist Ola Aladassi from the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association, medical worker and unionist Eleana Ni Mhurchu and Aviva Tuffield, who helped organise Read Palestine Week.
Protesters were urged to turn out in numbers for the December 8 rally.
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